Sandman Mystery Theatre #8 (Nov 1993)

Sandman Mystery Theatre #8: "The Face" Act Four

Written by Matt Wagner

Art by John Watkiss

Colors by David Hornung

Letters by John Costanza

Edited by Shelly Roeberg and Karen Berger

Cover by Gavin Wilson

Curtain up.

The Sandman has discovered the lair of the killer who has been chopping off the heads of various Chinese in an effort to stir up gang violence in Chinatown.  The Face's hideout is loaded with sets of dentures, wigs, fake noses, foreheads with eyebrows, everything he needs to change his appearance so as to look like virtually anyone.  The Sandman also notices a newspaper with a personal ad from the Face's shadowy employer, so now The Sandman knows how the killer gets in contact with his boss.

Over in Chinatown, paramedics treat Jimmy Shan for the head wound he received when the Face tried to kill him.  Of course, neither fact that Dian Belmont was following Jimmy nor that a woman saved his life are very appealing to Jimmy and his current anger issues.

Jimmy screams at Dian for another two panels, accusing her and her father and every white person of racism, and then sulks in pain and embarrassment.  Dian's grief and humiliation is interrupted by her father's sudden intervention as he drags her back home.

The Face, suffering a gunshot wound from Dian, makes his way back to his lair, coughing and muttering to himself, unaware that The Sandman is lying in wait for him.  But despite his wounds and shaky appearance, the Face betrays unexpected speed and strength.  When The Sandman points his gas gun in the Face's, um, face, the Face wheels around to attack.

So... that could've gone better.

Back at the Belmont household, Larry screams at his daughter for sneaking around Chinatown and getting involved with Jimmy, who's assault only points to his involvement with the Tongs.  He's also none to thrilled that Dian stole his gun, which she used to save Jimmy from the Face.  Larry accuses his daughter of taking the law into her own hands like a "vigilante debutante."

At a dive bar across town, the Face calls a newspaper demanding they run an ad in tonight's edition so he can get in touch with his boss.  An exotic dancer tries to come on to him, but he shows her what he looks like without his makeup and prosthetics.  Terrified of his appearance and his not-so-veiled threats, the woman backs away.

In the hospital, a pair of nurses chat as one of them goes to check on Jimmy Shan.  One of the nurses says horrible things about Asian- and African-Americans.  When they get to Jimmy's room, though, his bed is empty and the window is open.

Elsewhere, the mayor sits at a meeting with local business men and other movers and shakers, including philanthropist Herman Ross and his partner Benson, who are still trying to get a school funded in Chinatown.  Ross and Benson are flipping through the newspaper, which happens to be running an ad from the Face requesting a meeting.

The same ad is read by Wesley Dodds, who knows this is how the Face and his boos make contact.  He puts his creepy doll to bed and suits up for a night in Central Park.

After Dian sneaks out of the house, we find Herman Ross in Central Park waiting for the Face.  The Face, though, seems to be running quite late, so Ross dispatches his driver to look around and find him.

After escaping from the hospital, Jimmy Shan goes to his mother's home to retrieve his father's gun.  He's in a killing mood, and Dian can't stop him even when she arrives begging him to stop.  Jimmy is so embittered by the world of late, that he actually comes across as racist as Dian's father.

Back in the park, Herman's driver attacks him with an axe.  It's the Face, of course, pissed off that he got shot when trying to kill Jimmy.  He blames Herman Ross for setting him up and wants revenge.

But "Herman Ross" may not be what he seems...

The Sandman throws a net over the Face to keep his speed and strength neutralized.  In a rage, the Face lashes out, but loses his footing and stumbles into the pond.

Jimmy goes to see Wu Sung, head of the Huo Yubai clan, who he blames for killing his sister.  But Dian followed him again, refusing to let Jimmy's hatred lead to his self-destruction.  She actually stands between Jimmy and Wu Sung, insisting that if Jimmy wants to kill the man he has to shoot through her.

Her defiance is enough to snap Jimmy out of the moment's insanity.  He drops the gun and Wu Sung tells Dian to get Jimmy out of there.

Lieutenant Burke is heading out to enforce the peace in Chinatown when he finds someone tied up in front of the station.

Larry Belmont tells Dian what we already know, that Herman Ross' partner, Benson, hired the Face to start an all-out war in the Chinese community to further their business dealings.  Benson hoped that Wu Sung would be killed because Wu Sung was the only person who knew that Benson was part Chinese.

Larry apologizes to Dian for being racist toward Asians (I think he should've apologized to Asians, but whatever), and Dian tells her father that she isn't seeing Jimmy anymore on account of him losing his mind and pointing a gun at her.  The story ends with her making a date with Wesley Dodds, now the best man in her life.

The final revelation of the power behind the Face was a little underwhelming since he really didn't know that much about Herman Ross or Eldridge Benson.  And despite how dangerous the Face should have been, he was taken down too easily.  He slipped out of The Sandman's grasp once out of luck and desperation, but the second time, he just falls into the water and drowns.  It doesn't have the same level of menace as the Tarantula from the last story arc.

Dian's story throughout these four issues is a little more interesting, but Jimmy's self-destruction swings too far toward the melodramatic.  There really didn't seem to be any racism or insecurity in his first appearance, so to see him fall so far so quickly is a little jarring.  It is interesting that it's not merely the fault of society in how it limits and projects fears on him because of his appearance, that there is something dark and hateful inside him, but it comes out too suddenly.  Dian, of course, shows a new kind of heroism in her compassion and her refusal to give up on the man she once loved very much.

There was a lot of good material in "The Face" but it wasn't as awesome as the initial arc in the series.  Still... "Pretty good" for Sandman Mystery Theatre is still better than almost any other series.

Come back next week for the opening act of "The Brute"...

Curtain.

Sandman Mystery Theatre #7 (Oct 1993)

Sandman Mystery Theatre #7: "The Face" Act Three

Written by Matt Wagner

Art by John Watkiss

Colors by David Hornung

Letters by John Costanza

Edited by Shelly Roeberg and Karen Berger

Cover by Gavin Wilson

Curtain up.

Act Three of "The Face" opens with the Sandman lurking around the city morgue, collecting samples of some kind from the Face's decapitated victims.  A security guard hears the mystery man, but by the time he enters the morgue, the Sandman has vanished.

In Chinatown, Jimmy Shan races to the house of Hsu Chang, head of the Lei Feng family.  Jimmy is still somewhat recovering from his encounter with the Sandman last issue, an encounter that left him gassed and unconscious.

Jimmy recounts his meeting with the Sandman to Hsu Chang, pleading with the man not to go to war against the Huo Yibai because the killings are the work of a third party attempting to pit the Chinese against each other.  Chang dismisses Jimmy's claims as childish and naive, and tells Jimmy that a third victim was found that night.

Hsu Chang shows Jimmy the head of the prostitute killed by the Face last issue.  Jimmy loses his mind to grief, screaming the girls name.  Obviously, she was familiar, someone he cared deeply for.

Back at his mansion, Wesley Dodds conducts some experiments on the samples he stole from the morgue, then does some research in his private library.

Still upset over her father's behavior toward Jimmy the night before, Dian Belmont returns to Jimmy's apartment the following day.  The Jimmy she finds is drunk and angry.  Angry at himself, angry at whites, the Tongs, the whole world.

He asks Dian to leave.  She offers to stay with him but he asks her again to leave him alone.  She leaves, knowing that if she stayed, she would fall into the same abyss of bitterness that has claimed her ex-boyfriend.

After leaving Jimmy's place, Dian heads to Wesley Dodds' manor.  Wesley's butler tells Dian that he has turned in for the evening.

Dian confides in Wesley her suspicions that Jimmy may still be involved in the Tongs' criminal activity.  Wesley advises her to get a night's sleep before sharing her suspicions with her father, the district attorney.  Then, once Dian leaves, Wesley strips off his robe, revealing he's still dressed in his "work clothes".  Humphries hands him his Sandman hat and coat.

Lieutenant Burke leads a detail of uniform police to a medical supply shop.  Burke says the coroner's analysis of the bodies suggests they were killed using a surgical hacksaw but that the murderer wasn't a doctor, so the police want records of all sales of medical equipment to non-doctors.  The light is out in the shopkeeper's office, and Burke knows he's not the first person to come looking for the records.

The cops open fire but the Sandman gasses the room, disorienting the uniform officers and sending Burke running and coughing.

Elsewhere, Jimmy Shan meets with Herman Ross and an associate for a business meeting about investing in some property.  But the death of Jimmy's sister and his recent drunken tear has left Jimmy woefully unprepared for the meeting.  Ross and his pal are not happy with Jimmy.

Later, as Larry Belmont listens to Fibber McGee and Molly on the radio, the D.A. gets a call from Burke telling him the Sandman is involved in the Chinatown case.  Dian overhears this.  Elsewhere, the Sandman's investigation takes him from the records room to an empty store front and a mob currier who drops off money at the train station.

That night, the man who has hired the Face to incite war among the Tongs meets his hired assassin in a box seat at the opera.  He gives the Face one final target: Jimmy Shan.  The Face picks up his payment at a locker in the train station, but Wesley Dodds has him staked out.

The Sandman follows the Face into an apartment and a secret room downstairs.  Once there, the Sandman discovers the Face's room full of makeup, wigs, prosthetics and false-faces.  But the killer is not there.

Dian follows Jimmy Shan around Chinatown to confirm or disprove her suspicions.  And while he's distracted from how his life seems to be crumbling, she is alert enough to spot the killer waiting for him in the alley.

The story is ramping up for an exciting conclusion.  The Sandman has the killer in his sites, but when the killer can appear as anyone, will catching the Face be that easy?

We still don't know the power behind the Face's killings, but my money's on Herman Ross.  He has no other reason for being in the story, and if the Chinese go to war against each other leading to violence and sanctions by the police department, it could open lots of real estate or other business opportunities for the philanthropist.

Jimmy Shan appeared to have assimilated completely into the white man's world at the start of this story arc, finding financial success but still lacking the acceptance of men like Larry Belmont.  He has fallen quite far at this point, full of hatred and prejudices of his own and wandering around the Chinatown that seemed foreign for him only a few issues ago.

Dian continues to surprise and impress.  Though she was turning into the worrying girlfriend for a while there, she makes up for it on the last page by actually shooting the killer and saving Jimmy.

What will happen to Jimmy?  What will happen when the Face returns to his hideout to discover the Sandman already there?  And who does Dian really love?

Come back next week for the fourth and final act of "The Face"...

Curtain.

Sandman Mystery Theatre #6 (Sep 1993)

Sandman Mystery Theatre #6: "The Face" Act Two

Written by Matt Wagner

Art by John Watkiss

Colors by David Hornung

Letters by John Costanza

Edited by Shelly Roeberg and Karen Berger

Cover by Gavin Wilson

Curtain up.

The Sandman skulks around a large house in Chinatown when someone creeps up on him with an axe.  It looks like the same man who killed the standup comedian Ling Hoon, who may in fact be a mercenary capable of changing his facial appearance.  A killer known as "The Face".

Anyway, the Face swings his powerful axe right into the Sandman's back, bringing the vigilante down to his knees.  But luckily, Wesley Dodds wore a plate of metal under his trench coat which functioned as a shield and saved his spine.  He throws the metal at the axeman, creating enough of a distraction to get his gas gun out.

The Sandman grabs his jacket and slips out of the house through the window he came in.  He jumps in his car and drives off.

Meanwhile, in the same house he was sneaking around in, the heads of the Lei Feng have met to discuss their declaration of war against the Huo Yibai for killing two of their people.  The Lei Feng want blood, demanding counterattacks to salvage their pride and honor and maintain the appearance of strength and order.

The only dissenting opinion is Zhang Chai Lao, the lawyer better known as Jimmy Shan to people outside Chinatown.  He cautions the Lei Feng not to strike at the Huo Yibai, that the attacks might be the work of a third force trying to reignite old Tong rivalries and plunge them into war.

Any words of caution that might have gotten through to the group are muted, however, when one of the lord's servants--the axeman who might be the Face--informs them that an intruder was discovered trying to spy on their meeting.  The Lei Feng assume the spy was of the Huo Yibai and their bloodlust returns.

After being blown off by Jimmy Shan and then Wesley Dodds, Dian Belmont finally finds a friend to spend the evening with.  She and a girlfriend go to the Palais Royale club, where they watch a group of teenagers dancing to the Jitterbug.  In her narration, Dian comments about witnessing this kind of music and dancing in Harlem and it seeming so free and natural, but in this part of town with these kids, it seems "desperate."  Is this Matt Wagner commenting on how mainstream (white) culture tries to emulate and/ore steal the styles of black culture?

Dian confides that she is still attracted to Jimmy, but is it something specific about him that appeals to her?  Something he represents or something he gives her?

Across town, Wesley Dodds gets home, strips off his Sandman garb and examines the metal body armor that saved his life.

The next day, the Mayor calls Chief Ross O'Donald and DA Larry Belmont into his office.  He's worried that the murders in Chinatown will erupt into full-scale war amongst the Tongs and wants some unruly Chinese arrested as a show of law and order.  Belmont's prejudices against the Asian community make themselves well known, the but Mayor quashes his attitude in the office.  (Say, the Mayor looks a little bit like the rich guy who met the Face in a limousine back in issue #5.  He's even smoking a cigar, too...)

Later, Dian makes a date with Jimmy, which just pisses her father off all the more.  He warns Dian that Jimmy might be involved in some of the beheading crimes, then leaves in a huff, knowing that if Jimmy is dangerous, that would probably just excite Dian.  Despite her anger with her father, the idea is not so ridiculous to Dian.  She thinks she saw the head of Ling Hoon delivered in a package to Jimmy's door.  She's making plans with him because she wants to know how deeply involved in these bloody events.

During her dinner with Jimmy, she is prevented from directly confronting him about his involvement, first by Herman Ross, the philanthropist, and then by Wesley Dodds, who makes up some excuse to be there even though he's clearly spying on Jimmy or Dian.

Outside the Cotton Club, a young paperboy is accosted by a homeless dreg wanting a paper.  A bouncer outside the club makes the paperboy give the homeless what he wants and then kicks him back into an alley.  As the seemingly drunken homeless man shuffles off, he opens the paper to a page with a personal message for The Face demanding another kill.

Donning another appearance, the Face returns to the prostitute he brutalized last issue.  She tells him she won't service him, but that's not what he has in mind.

Jimmy brings Dian home, but their goodnight kiss is interrupted by DA Belmont.

Belmont is rushing out of the house because the Tong have killed a prostitute, he says.  He asks Dian to call off her date and go back inside.  Jimmy says goodnight and walks back to his car.

But inside, he is greeted by the Sandman who calls him Zhang Chai Lao.

The Sandman gasses Jimmy and leaves him unconscious in the car.

This chapter ends with the Face returning to his apartment.  We see that he has a whole array of false teeth, false noses, false mustaches, beards, wigs, eyebrows, as well as scalpels and other tools.  He begins to shed his current disguise, which distorts his speech as he has no real teeth.  His actual face is obscured by shadow, but it must look dreadful.

Of the six issues of Sandman Mystery Theatre up to this point, this issue might be the weakest.  It's not a bad issue by any means, but it's the first chapter that doesn't really advance the story.  We know that someone is paying the Face to incite a war between two Chinese factions, but we don't have any better clue as to who is paying the Face or who he is.

Seeing Wesley meditating after his fight with the Face was a nice touch.  It cements his time spent in Easter Asia and serves as a simple pain-management technique for a vigilante in a physical job.  On the other hand, this story arc is getting rough for Larry Belmont.  His concern for his daughter is kind of negated by his racism which makes it impossible to find sympathy for him.

Methinks Dian Belmont is an adrenaline junkie.  After coming so close to danger in "The Tarantula" story arc, she is actively seeking it out, using her previous fling with Jimmy as an excuse to get inside a Chinese gang war.

This was a solid issue, and I actually liked John Watkiss' art better this time than last issue, but the characters and story seem to be treading water.  Maybe it's because Wagner put so much information into last issue, that now we must let the story simmer before it really starts to boil.

Come back next week for Act Three of "The Face"...

Curtain.

Sandman Mystery Theatre #5 (Aug 1993)

Sandman Mystery Theatre #5: "The Face" Act One

Written by Matt Wagner

Art by John Watkiss

Colors by David Hornung

Letters by John Costanza

Edited by Shelly Roeberg and Karen Berger

Cover by Gavin Wilson

Curtain up.

The second Sandman story arc opens in Chinatown on February 26, 1938.  Dian Belmont, the beautiful and forceful daughter of District Attorney Larry Belmont, narrates this story through what might be considered diary or journal entries.

Dian has taken four of her socialite friends to a Chinese Restaurant so she can unwind and forget about the horror that befell her friend Catherine in the previous story.  She seems much more at home, or at least more familiar in Chinatown than her friends, to whom the city and its people are still exotic and mysterious.  Through Dian's narration, she explains that her father was far less supportive of her jaunts to this part of town.

After excusing herself somewhat awkwardly and embarrassedly, Dian talks to Jimmy.  It's obvious they have a romantic history--obvious, especially, to Dian's friends who girl her about it when she returns to the table.  They can't believe she slept with a Chinese, to which Dian corrects them that Jimmy is Cantonese.  When they press her for more details, she describes him as "very passionate".

The more Dian thinks about Jimmy, the more she realizes she misses him.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Shan goes upstairs to meet Wu Sung, head of the Huo Yibai family.  Wu Sung tells him that a standup comedian from the Lei Feng family has been making a lot of jokes at the expense of the Huo Yibai.  As a representative of the Lei Feng, Jimmy--or Zhang Chai Lao as he is called--promises Wu Sung that the comedian will be reprimanded and that peace between the families is of the highest priority.  Considering the families they're talking about are ancient crime dynasties, the meeting is remarkably amiable.  There seems to be no real tension or underlying threat between Wu Sung and Jimmy Shan.

The meeting is observed by the Sandman, who hangs outside the window from a rope harness.

The police swarm on Chinatown to investigate the dead discovered by Dian's friends.  When Larry Belmont arrives to pick up his daughter, she asks why so many cops have shown up for one dead body.  Larry suggests the reemergence of the Tong factions, those same Lei Feng and Huo Yibai families seen earlier.  Beneath the severed head was a note claiming the murder was a message to the Huo Yibai from the Lei Feng.

Through her narration, Dian criticizes her father of prejudice against Asians.  She outright calls him a bigot.  But on March 1st, Larry brings his daughter to a charity benefit for a school in Chinatown.  At the party, Dian meets the host, Herman Ross, who seems to have a reputation for fundraising...or at least for getting people's money.

Dian also sees Wesley Dodds, who is introduced to Herman Ross.  At that moment, though, Jimmy Shan crashes their reunion, warning them--playfully perhaps--that business with Ross is never cheap. Herman explains that Jimmy was responsible for finding the school they want to fund.  When Herman tries to introduce him to the rest of the party, Jimmy snubs them in favor of Dian.  He knows she found the body the other night and asks her to call him.

He leaves without speaking to Wesley Dodds, though Wes seems intent on pursuing him until Dian stops him.

Wes and Dian search unsuccessfully for a non-alcoholic drink while reminiscing about Catherine's recuperation.  Dian thinks of Wes as a "very serious sort, but also relaxed and confident in his own way."

That night in Chinatown, we see the comedian Ling Hoon performing his act, ripping on the Huo Yibai to much applause and laughter from the crowd.  After his set, he returns to his dressing room.  Another Chinese, claiming to be picking up or dropping off laundry, enters the room.

Is this the work of the Huo Yibai killing the comedian for insulting them?  Or is this retaliation for the severed head left on their turf?  The fact that this killer wields an axe suggests he might have killed both.  And what does he mean about "appearances"?  Hmm...

The Sandman goes to an illegal gambling den in Chinatown.

The Sandman drops a gas capsule from a hidden compartment in his shoe.  The gas covers his escape as he asks one last question, the ultimate question in a murder mystery: who benefits?  Certainly not the Tongs, Master Bei insists, and suggests the killer might be someone outside of Chinatown.

Dian goes to see Jimmy Shan, deciding that she needs some closure on their summer tryst, or else she wants to start it up again.  Jimmy informs her that he is working for the Lei Feng, but dismisses their characterization as a Tong; more of a mutual aid society or union, he says.  He is interrupted when a package is delivered.  Whatever is inside disturbs him, because after getting a quick look at its contents, he quickly ushers Dian out of his apartment.

Elsewhere, a drunken bum wanders up to a very nice looking car...

A shape-changer!  A man who can rearrange his physical appearance so that he enters a limousine looking like an old white vagabond, and emerges from the same car looking Chinese!!!  Who is he meeting with and what was he paid for?  Is he the murderer of Ling Hoon?  Was Master Bei right that an outside force is conspiring to reignite old rivalries and set the Tong against each other?  For what purpose?

Well, the man in the car told the shape-changer to have fun.  The first thing he does is visit a prostitute, introducing himself as Lian, meaning face.  "The Face", get it?  He messes up the prostitute to the point where she says her appearance is so ugly she won't be able to charge more than ten cents.  So the Face is not only a killer and master of disguise, but a sadistic torturer of women.

Dian goes to see her father, but he's busy with police business in light of a symbolic declaration of war by the Lei Feng.  Outside Dian bumps into Wesley, but he has to take a raincheck when she asks him to dinner.  Dian is drawn to both Wesley and Jimmy, but a large part of the attraction is also what kept her and Jimmy apart: they are both obsessive men, driven by their passions and likely to prioritize their goals above her.

The Sandman skulks around Chinatown, looking for something, when someone finds him.

My first thought on this issue was I instantly missed Guy Davis' artwork.  I am immeasurably happy that Davis comes back, drawing every other story arc, but it leaves the art in-between a little inconsistent.  That said, there is nothing wrong with John Watkiss' work in this issue.  It's terrific.  He maintains a lot of the same aesthetics as Guy Davis while employing his own style.  His Dian Belmont is still beautiful, and his Wesley Dodds is even more lean and naturally heroic looking.  I'm not sure I like that; I kind of prefer the doughy version Davis drew as it seemed so unexpected.

What I really, really enjoy about Watkiss' pencils in this issue is the way he draws the Sandman's gas mask.  There is a pinched quality to the rebreather and sinister angling of the eyes that make it look like a beetle or mosquito.  Looks awesome!

After making such an indelible mark in "The Tarantula" I worried that Dian would fall back to generic love interest and supporting character.  Once again, though, Matt Wagner puts her front and center.  She not only narrates the story, but she is personally involved with the man intimately linked in a potential gang war.  That she was open-minded enough for the time to have dated an Asian-American is just one more example of how multi-faceted her character is.

As for the story itself, Wagner isn't repeating himself.  We have no Jack the Ripper cypher for our villain, but an intelligent and fiendish mercenary who can change his facial appearance.  And who uses this skill not just to kidnap and kill women, but to enflame a centuries old rivalry between Chinese factions.  The geo-political backdrop kicks this story up from whodunnit to true mystery classic!

Come back next week for Act Two of "The Face"...

Curtain.

Sandman Mystery Theatre #4 (July 1993)

Sandman Mystery Theatre #4: "The Tarantula" Act Four

Written by Matt Wagner

Art by Guy Davis

Colors by David Hornung

Letters by John Costanza

Edited by Shelly Roeberg and Karen Berger

Cover by Gavin Wilson

Curtain up.

Chief Ross O'Donald and Lieutenant Burke go to question Albert Goldman about his daughter's kidnapping.  Albert and his wife, Miriam, are completely incapable from hiding their animosity toward each other from the cops.  Their son, Roger, smashes a glass in disgust and walks out of the room.

O'Donald orders Burke to postpone the questioning until the family can settle down.  As he's leaving, Burke tells Albert Goldman that he's going to question an old accountant of Goldman's.  Burke knows Goldman made his fortune bootlegging during prohibition and has plenty of illicit dealings with the mob.

Back in the house, Albert Goldman appears genuinely distraught about the loss of his daughter.  Miriam...less so.

The Sandman, in his custom black coupe, drops its rear fender, which is lined with jagged caltrops.  Burke's patrol car drives over, puncturing the tires and sending the car spinning out of control.  Burke pounds the dashboard, cursing, as the Sandman drives off to interrogate Myron Fields before the police can.

Fields is just getting out of the shower when the Sandman gasses him.  When questioned, the accountant reveals that the Evergood Milk Company used to be owned by Albert, but ownership was passed to Roger, along with several other failing businesses as part of the younger Goldman's inheritance.  Fields reveals that Goldman disdains his son because of his business failures, as well as problems he had in school.  Two different private schools expelled Roger: one because he assaulted a female classmate, and the other because he tortured a dog.  (Suspect!)

Throughout the interrogation, Fields keeps nearly choking on his own saliva or passing out.  The Sandman has to coach him in order to keep him semiconscious.  Fields is obese and the effect of the Sandman's gas is messing with his system.  Later, when the Burke finally does arrive at the scene, one of the uniformed cops says that Fields practically died but they were able to get him to the hospital in time.  The Sandman also left another origami piece at the scene, this one containing a poem about his quest to bring down the Tarantula.

Chief O'Donald goes to the home of District Attorney Belmont to bring him up to speed on the investigation.  The cops are thinking Albert Goldman might be the kidnapper and faked his daughter's kidnapping.  When the other cops leave, the Sandman visits Belmont for the second time.

"To see the wicked brought low and to ensure the sleep of the just," the Sandman replies.  Then he leaves out the window.

Unbeknownst to the vigilante or the D.A., their conversation was overheard by Belmont's daughter, Dian.  She watches the Sandman's black coupe drive off and follows him.

In the Goldman residence, Albert is grieving for his missing daughter.  Roger goes into his room with a gun and tries to work up the courage to shoot his father in the head.  Albert, ignorant of his son's intentions or just ambivalent, continues to admonish Roger for his continued failures and shortcomings.  Roger lowers the gun and leaves.

Across town, Wesley Dodds is coming out of his mansion when Dian drives up.  She took her father's car and followed the mysterious black coupe but lost it somewhere around this neighborhood.  Wesley says he didn't see any car like that, and Dian drives off in a hurry.  Naturally, Wesley opens his garage to reveal the same car Dian was pursuing.

As the police and D.A. Belmont go to question Albert Goldman about his son, Dian goes to the police station looking for her father.

Dian tells Lieutenant Burke that she can find where the Tarantula is holding his victims if she can see get access to the Hall of Records.

Albert doesn't know where his son Roger is at the moment but tells the police his wife probably does.  When he goes to wake Miriam, he finds only pillows in her bed meant to create the illusion that she's sleeping.

In the Tarantula's lair, one of the kidnappers is savagely beating Celia with a chain.

The hooded torturer turns his/her attention on the first kidnapping victim, Catherine Van Der Meer, and is ready to hack her up with an axe when the Sandman arrives.

The Sandman removes the kidnapper's hood only to discover it's Miriam Goldman, not Roger.

But then Roger does show up in his black Klan-style robes brandishing his gun.  The Sandman theorizes that Mother was the mastermind and Roger merely the weapon used to kill the girls.  But why strike out at his own sister, the Sandman wants to know, unless she was the target all along and the others just practice while Roger got up the nerve to do it.

As the Sandman keeps Roger distracted, Celia regains consciousness.  The electrical wires severed by Miriam's clumsy axe-swing are down at her feet.  She is able to grab the wires with her toes and throw them at Roger.  The wires land in a puddle at Roger's feet, electrocuting him.

This was a clever twist on the old monologuing trope that bedevils so many villains.  This time, the hero keeps talking long enough for providence to strike down the villain.

The cops arrive and Dian is there to comfort her friend Catherine when she regains consciousness.  Burke reads another cryptic poem by the Sandman and fumes that the masked vigilante got away this time.

Sometime later, Dian and her father meet Wesley and Judge Schaffer for dinner at a club.  They share information about the case and connect the dots: classic debriefing and expositional stuff.  Belmont explains how Albert Goldman had an incestuous affair with his daughter, but as she grew up, she used that history to blackmail him into getting all of the family's money if/when he died.  Roger and Miriam found out about this and planned to get rid of her.  They kidnapped and tortured Catherine on the off chance she knew anything about Albert's situation, and then killed more women to create the fiction of the Tarantula and throw suspicion off the family.

Of course, Wesley secretly knew all this, so the exposition was really for the sake of the Judge... and any readers who weren't able to put the pieces together.

As they say goodnight, Dian and Wesley share a moment.

I've read this four act story three times and the quality never wanes.  In fact, each time I find something more to love about it.  This time, for instance, I was struck by how the Sandman's gas gun worked--or didn't--not once but twice in this issue.  When the Sandman gasses the fat, sickly Myron Fields, the old man damn near has a heart attack.  That certainly wasn't Wesley's intention and he has to work a little harder to keep the man alive, even going so far as to prop him up so the blood will keep flowing.

Later, the Sandman is nearly killed when the gas has virtually no effect on Miriam Goldman because of her alcoholism.  Up to this point, the Sandman has seemed Batman-like in his preparation and steps ahead of the police.  In this issue, we see two unexpected pseudo-weaknesses for the man in the mask.  It's a nice touch that humanizes the hero and shows he is not above making mistakes at this early stage of his crime fighting career.

Of course, this being the Sandman's book, he has to take center stage in the climactic battle against the Tarantulas, even if one of the victims gets the credit for killing her captor.  Unfortunately, this means Dian Belmont takes a backseat in this final act.  Up to this point, her development as a dynamic and credible investigator had been one of the best parts of the series.  This time, her gumshoeing is kept off panel from the readers.  As a consolation prize, the characters within the story--from her father to Lt. Burke--all give her credit for tracking down the Tarantula's hideout.  That'll do.

The last moment between Wesley and Dian is nicely understated.  Problem solving is his speciality, he says, while saying she is anything but "needy".  It's true in that Wesley is a secret superhero and Dian has evolved from vapid socialite to fearsome crusader.

This relationship and this series is just getting started.  Come back next Saturday for the first act of "The Face"...

Curtain.

Bonus:  Dave Marsh, a music critic and radio show host, wrote the introduction to the first trade paperback in the Sandman Mystery Theatre series.  He provides historical context for the new series, as well as thoughtful and prosaic commentary on the the bleak, nightmarish themes and desperate characters that made up Matt Wagner's world of the Sandman.

You may need to open the following images in another tab/window and zoom in to read the full text.  Take a look--it's worth the read!

Sleep well!

Sandman Mystery Theatre #3 (June 1993)

Sandman Mystery Theatre #3: "The Tarantula" Act Three

Written by Matt Wagner

Art by Guy Davis

Colors by David Hornung

Letters by John Costanza

Edited by Shelly Roeberg and Karen Berger
Cover by Gavin Wilson

Curtain up.

Late at night, Lieutenant Burke comes to investigate an Evergood Milk Company warehouse, but he's not the only one.  The locks chaining the doors shut have been picked, and when Burke gets to the office, he finds the Sandman going through the safe.

Wesley Dodds returns home at three in the morning, but his butler, Humphries, tells him he has a visitor--Dian Belmont!  Hmm, what could she want at 3:00 AM?

Dian confesses to becoming obsessed with the Tarantula case.  She feels guilty that her dreams are uninterrupted while her friend, Catherine Van Der Meer, must be enduring agonizing torture at the hands of her kidnapper.  She wants desperately to get involved in the case and help out, and she tells Wesley she just needed to say it out loud to someone.

So she didn't come over for sex.  Disappointing.  We do see a bit of her observational skills, though, as she mocks Wesley for being too tired to take his hat off while they're talking.  Once she leaves, however, we see that Wesley kept the hat on because his head was bleeding after his struggle with Burke at the warehouse.

Elsewhere, the third victim of the Tarantula has been beaten to death and lies rotting at Catherine's feet.  Upstairs, her kidnappers bicker and argue like, well, like family members.

Hmm... One of them refers to Catherine as a "shiksa".  That's a yiddish word, ain't it?

Meanwhile, Albert Goldman is in his den closing a business deal that will put ownership of something in his daughter Celia's name.  After that, he calls his driver and asks him to pick up his girlfriend, Miss Van Der Meer, and then remembers she was kidnapped, duh-doy!  So he tells the driver to pick up another girl.  Any girl.  He stokes the fire with an iron, an iron that looks remarkably similar to the weapon the Tarantula beat Catherine and her fellow victims with.

The next day, Dian Belmont visits her father, District Attorney Larry Belmont, at his office and asks for a job working close to the case.  He dismisses her and shoos her out of the office.  On her way home, she passes a saloon called Sammy's Bar.

Inside Sammy's we find Lieutenant Burke and Captain Ross McDonald drinking and talking about the case.  Burke is pretty sour about being sprayed by knockout gas twice.  He tells Ross that the paper trail from the Evergood warehouse leads to a lawyer named Fenton Devere.

The Sandman followed the same trail.  In Devere's penthouse, the guard dog attacks.

The Sandman threatens to kill the dog with poison gas if Devere doesn't answer his questions.  Devere gives some information on the owner of Evergood, but when he starts lying, Sandman gasses him (with knockout gas, not poison).  Shortly thereafter, Lt. Burke arrives.

Wesley Dodds goes to visit his friend Judge Schaffer to ask circuitously how one would obtain a company's bankruptcy records.  The judge tells him to visit the bankruptcy court.  At the same time, Dian Belmont confronts her father about wanting to help him catch the Tarantula, but he dismisses her again and tells her to stay in the house.

While Dian was sneaking through her father's records, the Sandman broke into the records room of the bankruptcy court.  After that, Wesley returns home.

Wesley and Dian share notes about Albert Goldman, how he made his money bootlegging and whether or not he could still be involved in crime.  Dian reveals that on the day Catherine was kidnapped, she mentioned being involved with a gangster.

At the Goldman Estate, Albert Goldman goes to his daughter's bedroom to tell her he has set up a trust in her name at the First Bank of Hollywood.  She'll get boatloads of money if and when he dies. The news is so pleasing to her that she begins to kiss him.  We get confirmation that they have been carrying on an incestuous affair.

But as Celia seduces her father, their tryst is observed through a keyhole by her brother, Roger.

At the police station, Lt. Burke interrogates Fenton Devere.  When the lawyer won't give the desired answers, Burke beats him.  Eventually Devere reveals that Albert Goldman was the owner of Evergood Milk, and used the company as a front for his booze smuggling during Prohibition.

That night, Wesley dreams of greed and lust, of corruption of the soul.

He wakes to find that he has a visitor.  This time, it's not Dian but Judge Schaffer, who tells him the Tarantula has struck again.  This time, the kidnapping victim is Celia Goldman.

The story is ramping up as we near its climactic finale.  Matt Wagner continues to add layers not only to the mystery, but to the characters.  We learn a few more hints about Wesley's complicated history with his father.  We get a sense of what kind of man and investigator Lt. Burke is--the kind willing to use violence to get his way.  However, of all the characters, Dian Belmont continues to be the most fun to watch.  Her journey from fun-loving party girl lacking ambition to driven detective raging against stereotypes makes her the breakout character of the arc.  It's also great to see how her relationship with Wesley develops slowly.

Guy Davis "beautifully ugly" style looks better than ever in this issue.  The dog that attacks the Sandman out of the dark is monstrously savage.  The grotesqueness of the Tarantula's violence is brutal, while the smoldering passion of Celia's illicit coupling with her father plays out in Sandman's stormy vision.

If I haven't mentioned it previously, David Hornung's colors are amazing.  In the first scene, the Sandman wears a violet trench coat over an olive suit, a lovely play on the color scheme of the Golden Age, when Sandman wore a purple opera cape over a green suit.

Come back next Saturday for the Final Act of "The Tarantula"...

Curtain.